D&D 5E Ideas For a World of Islands? (+thread)

[doctorbadwolf]

The major constellations in Eberron are dragon gods.

Not necessarily every god would need to be a manifestation of another. Again, if you say that every god is tied to a constellation, then there will be some constellations that are foreign to other geographic locations. So there could be more geographically specific constellations/divinities. Or even that other cultures may believe that their god Lathander isn't Pelor, but, rather, that Pelor is merely a representation of Lathander. But deities for the earth, moon(s), sun, or other visible planets may differ from those of the constellation deities.

But keep in mind that the Sovereign Host did do the whole "But your local god is just an aspect of Balinor..." which is one reason why the Sovereign Host was so ubiquitous and able to bring other peoples into the fold. Though in some cultures the gods of the Sovereign Host are rearranged into different configurations.

My own preference when having deities is to work with a manageable set, though I would likely include other religions outside of this pantheon, much as Eberron did: e.g., Silver Flame, Path of Light, Blood of Vol, Undying Court, etc.

Maybe the Dragonborn Empire has a syncretist approach. Every cultural deity they encounter is mapped as a constellation in the heavens and a part of the larger Ouroboros figure.

Okay, i'd forgotten about the dragon gods. I don't really ever do anything with dragon religion in my Eberron games, so, fair enough.

I'm well aware of how the Sovereign Host works, and that's fine for Eberron, where I find the Host to be by far the most boring religion. I'm just not into doing the same thing in a new world, except perhaps as one culture's belief, like how Romans liked to pretend that other culture's gods were just differently named versions of their own, but most other cultures learned about foriegn gods and viewed them as distinct gods, sometimes adding them to their worship as distinct gods.

Anyway the dragonborn culture viewing all gods as part of the Uoroboros figure Io is fine and cool, but in general I'd rather have the various people's either share gods or have their own localized gods that are not ever treated as an aspect of anyone else. One Island might call Pelor "Belor" or "Pelkor" "Pell", but it's "Odin" and "Woden", not "Odin is Mercury" or whatever.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One thing trade does that you'll want to leverage - it creates spaces where a lot of different kinds of people interact with each other. You can't have the party meet in a tavern if all the taverns are only one-race (unless your plan is to only play one-race games, but I didn't see any evidence of that.)

Beyond where trade happens, you really don't need to specify anything else about trade structures (or lack thereof) to run a DnD game.

Absolutely.

 

[Dioltach]

How about some traditional D&D elements and how they change?

Logically, if so much of the culture is water-based, temples to sea gods won't be on islands. So underwater? Floating platforms? Just intrinsically holy parts of the sea? Sacred inlets?

I could imagine a wizard's tower floating in the sea, perhaps partially submerged. Or floating in the air. Druid groves could be coral reefs, or mangroves, or ocean currents.

What protections have evolved to protect ships and boats in combat? Given the prevalence of fire-based spells, surely every ship will have a permanent Protection from Fire at a minimum. Or maybe it's universally accepted that sorcerers and wizards are bad luck to have on board. Or ships have a water mephit on board for luck, the same way some ships insist of having a cat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How about some traditional D&D elements and how they change?

Logically, if so much of the culture is water-based, temples to sea gods won't be on islands. So underwater? Floating platforms? Just intrinsically holy parts of the sea? Sacred inlets?

I could imagine a wizard's tower floating in the sea, perhaps partially submerged. Or floating in the air. Druid groves could be coral reefs, or mangroves, or ocean currents.

What protections have evolved to protect ships and boats in combat? Given the prevalence of fire-based spells, surely every ship will have a permanent Protection from Fire at a minimum. Or maybe it's universally accepted that sorcerers and wizards are bad luck to have on board. Or ships have a water mephit on board for luck, the same way some ships insist of having a cat.

There are islands of various sizes, with people on them, so I think temples to water gods will be on land (in addition to underwater), while some will be in sea caves, etc.

More later gotta work lol

 

[Lanefan]

Not sure if it has been brought up, but a world with a lot water suggests (but doesn't require) a world of higher average temperatures.

Not necessarily.

You could have part of the world be set up like the far northern islands in Canada, where they're connected by ice in the winter and spring but separated in the summer and fall when the ice has melted.

There's some truly brilliant ideas in this thread so far. I've wanted to run a maritime-based campaign for ages but somehow it just never seems to come off; and I never really considered not having at least one major continent.

And I'm rather shocked that this opportunity hasn't already been snapped up by someone else, but in a setting like this what better PC could there ever be:

Dibs on playing Capt. Jack Sparrow!

 

[dave2008]

Not necessarily.

Oh I agree, that is why I said: "but doesn't require." It was just meant as a point of inspiration.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Other idea:

A large mercenary fleet that do not actually sell its boats to fight in battle but to form boat-bridges from one island to another to move caravans or armies, whatever you want, as long as you pay the price. The Charon Syndicate?

 

[dave2008]

Other idea:

A large mercenary fleet that do not actually sell its boats to fight in battle but to form boat-bridges from one island to another to move caravans or armies, whatever you want, as long as you pay the price. The Charon Syndicate?

That is a really interesting and fun idea.

 

[Lanefan]

A large mercenary fleet that do not actually sell its boats to fight in battle but to form boat-bridges from one island to another to move caravans or armies, whatever you want, as long as you pay the price. The Charon Syndicate?

Cool idea, though for it to work either the islands would need to be pretty close together or that syndicate is gonna have to have an awful lot of boats.

(I'm assuming "boat-bridge" to mean the boats are rafted together such that the army or caravan walks across from one island to another)

 

[Eyes of Nine]

@doctorbadwolf what is the largest island you are considering? England, Ireland, Honshu (Japan), Taiwan, Sumatra, Borneo, Madagascar - these are all pretty large islands, wherein most of the time, you don't actually feel like you are on an island. Comparitively, Shikoku, Guam, Hong Kong are small enough that you can walk their perimeter in a week or less, in some cases a day. Have you considered an upper bound on island size? (Heck, some may say that Australia or Antarctica are "islands", since they are not connected to another landmass).